Starting new Campaign as DM, asking for any tips

[ABEW19043]

Alright, so I've decided to make a new campaign with some friends of mine. It'll be Greyhawk 3.5, set in a world I've been working on for a little while.

PCs start off as a modification of the expert class, with each PC getting different bonuses depending on a job I'm having them choose for their role in the starting town's economy ( They're all around 30 and respected members of the community).

Becoming a prepared spellcaster (Wizard, Cleric, Druid, etc.) requires proper training from someone in that profession, and magic in the world is extremely rare, so they probably won't be in those classes for a while.

PCs use point buy for attributes, and I'm still deciding on the number of points.
I'm thinking 25, as we intend for it to be a fairly low power game.

Light is a huge issue in the gameplay, as I'm making it a focus around the story. PCs are barred to human only, as monsters and other races are going to be nonexistant and rare, respectively.

Any tips you guys could give me? I've already eliminated multiclassing exp penalties

[Angelalex242]

How are clerics rare? Unless there's virtually no churches in the world, there's clerics at every temple. Usually lots of them.

Also, I hate low point buys. It encourages SAD and discourages MAD.

[ABEW19043]

Clerics are rare due to plot devicium.
But no, I had thought about it. There's a serious reason imbedded in plot. The gods just don't care enough anymore.

Edit: And as for low point buy, I usually don't do it, as I hate underpowered characters, but it was a group decision. We're going for more realism. The players aren't trained adventurers, they're commoners (to start)

[ArcturusV]

Hmm... are you sure that 3.5 is the game you want to play? Low Magic and DnD don't tend to go together well. And eventually someone will learn Wizardry, or become a Cleric... or hell just be a Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Shugenja, etc, and break the game over their knee.

This is something to watch out for. The ability of a Sorcerer to break a game is basically just as high as a Wizard when it comes down to brass tacks. And if you disallow Wizards but allow Sorcerers as you currently are going, savvy players will realize that and rip face.

Whereas if you played a different game, be it RIFTS, or D20 Modern, whatever, it's balanced differently and may work better for Low Magic.

At the very least your world sounds very different from Greyhawk, so I'd kitbash up a setting on your own rather than say "it's greyhawk except different in almost every way". Use the greyhawk maps if you want, but just make up cities, cultures, gods, etc, the details on your own.

[ABEW19043]

Hmm... are you sure that 3.5 is the game you want to play? Low Magic and DnD don't tend to go together well. And eventually someone will learn Wizardry, or become a Cleric... or hell just be a Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Shugenja, etc, and break the game over their knee.

This is something to watch out for. The ability of a Sorcerer to break a game is basically just as high as a Wizard when it comes down to brass tacks. And if you disallow Wizards but allow Sorcerers as you currently are going, savvy players will realize that and rip face.

Whereas if you played a different game, be it RIFTS, or D20 Modern, whatever, it's balanced differently and may work better for Low Magic.

At the very least your world sounds very different from Greyhawk, so I'd kitbash up a setting on your own rather than say "it's greyhawk except different in almost every way". Use the greyhawk maps if you want, but just make up cities, cultures, gods, etc, the details on your own.


Sorry, I know I just kind of throw the Greyhawk think around, it's just what I think of when I think base D&D, as opposed to Eberron or the such.

The players won't break the game, and that's something I'm confident of. I'm playing with a group of long time friends, nobody new to the group. I'm actually the powergamer/minmaxer of the group, which is something I'm toning down for this campaign.

I'm fine with them becoming Favored Souls/Sorcerers/etc., it's mainly just for setting reasons that I'm doing it. The way we've always played, atmosphere trumps just about any rule, and everyone is generally okay with it.

I'm perfectly okay with people using magic, it just isn't going to be prominent in the world. There won't be a healer in every town, or a local wizard very often.

[JoshuaZ]

One thing that helps get players involved is to let them do parts of the setting design, working their backgrounds of their characters into the setting. Someone wants say an elf? They can make some decisions about how the elven kingdoms functions. Etc.

[theIrkin]

In the standard setting, clerics should be rare from the perspective of a commoner (or expert). Maybe one for each standard setting. Adepts should be the norm to everyone who isn't a mover or a shaker like a PC.

OP, when the PC's become more like PC Classes, are you going to modify their expert class, or are they going to be multiclassing into those roles?

[ABEW19043]

In the standard setting, clerics should be rare from the perspective of a commoner (or expert). Maybe one for each standard setting. Adepts should be the norm to everyone who isn't a mover or a shaker like a PC.

OP, when the PC's become more like PC Classes, are you going to modify their expert class, or are they going to be multiclassing into those roles?

The expert class is actually sort of far from it, but yes, they'll be multiclassing when it happens.

[JoshuaZ]

One thing I did to make a lower level magic setting is to make a "magician" variant of adepts, who are essentially wizards but with spell slots like adepts. In my setting they also don't regenerate all their spell slots daily, but whether you want that or not may matter, but this helps have a decent amount of magic without too much else floating around. Wizards then are rare and special.

[Sir Chuckles]

I find it strange that they're starting as Experts, especially since they're all 30 and Expert 1. The very latest starting age for a human Lv1 Cleric, Druid, Monk, or Wizard is 27. Meaning that there are easily mid to high level Wizards who are 30, and more easily Epic level Rogues (Who's starting age would be 16-19) at age 30.

My other big curiosity is the choice to set them as Experts right off the bat.
That's a weird one because I have my doubts that an Expert (Read: Skillmonkey Commoner) would personally respond to anything more dangerous than "a guy broke into my house".

[Angelalex242]

Errr...no?

Standard setting, every temple of every god is run by clerics, staffed by clerics, and so on. There's a cleric of xth level running the temple, he's got 2 subordinates of his level-2, who each have 2 subordinates of their level-2, continue till you run out of levels.

At least, that's how my groups have always played it. You can't enter a temple without tripping over 3 or more clerics. (who may be level 1, but they're clerics nonetheless.)

In addition, there's also temple discounts. Temples give clerics (and paladins) of their own faith a 50 percent discount. (the remaining fee is just a tithe.) Temples may also give discounts based on their specialty. Kord's people like casting bull's strength, Pelor's people like casting cure light wounds, Heironeus's people happily cast protection from evil, and St. Cuthbert's people put up Zones of Truth and Discern Lies at discounted rates, Boccob's your man if you want magic detected or identified...

[JoshuaZ]

Errr...no?

Standard setting, every temple of every god is run by clerics, staffed by clerics, and so on. There's a cleric of xth level running the temple, he's got 2 subordinates of his level-2, who each have 2 subordinates of their level-2, continue till you run out of levels.

At least, that's how my groups have always played it. You can't enter a temple without tripping over 3 or more clerics. (who may be level 1, but they're clerics nonetheless.)

This is setting dependent. In Eberron for example most clergy members are experts.

And your method would automatically force not only clerics to be common but high level clerics. Consider for example a monastery that has 40 people. The head of that monastery must be at least 11th level or so. This also forces authority to be synonymous with magical power level. Something like that might make sense in Forgotten Realms, or some versions of Greyhawk, but many other settings aren't like that.

[Red Rubber Band]

NPCs in a church can be cleric in name, and not in class. You're putting too much emphasis in a cleric actually being a cleric, when he could easily be a focused expert or commoner who takes some gnarly drugs. Or is a con artist.

This is all setting dependent, so "usual" rules or how people "usually" play may not apply.
For example, in a previous campaign I played low magic was the name of the game. More often than not, unless it was a large church, religious places of worship were run by mundanes who had invested in K:religion.

[ABEW19043]

I find it strange that they're starting as Experts, especially since they're all 30 and Expert 1. The very latest starting age for a human Lv1 Cleric, Druid, Monk, or Wizard is 27. Meaning that there are easily mid to high level Wizards who are 30, and more easily Epic level Rogues (Who's starting age would be 16-19) at age 30.

My other big curiosity is the choice to set them as Experts right off the bat.
That's a weird one because I have my doubts that an Expert (Read: Skillmonkey Commoner) would personally respond to anything more dangerous than "a guy broke into my house".


We play under the 'IRL, nearly no one has made it past level 5' idea, using skills as compared to Olympic events and the such for basis.

As for the experts, I did say a variant of expert. It's a homebrew kind of thing, something we all talked about and agreed on.

EDIT: This is the way we look at things.
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2

I know it has loopholes, but it also makes sense.

[Sir Chuckles]

We play under the 'IRL, nearly no one has made it past level 5' idea, using skills as compared to Olympic events and the such for basis.

As for the experts, I did say a variant of expert. It's a homebrew kind of thing, something we all talked about and agreed on.

EDIT: This is the way we look at things.
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2

I know it has loopholes, but it also makes sense.

Ca you explain this Expert variant?
That'd help a lot.

I'd also like to ask for the campaign's premise. Hard to give advice when all you say is their starting class, but not what they're actually going to be doing.
Even better, tell us what each player is focused on. Saying "They're all Experts of different flavor" does not good. Is there a surgeon with the Healing Hands feat? Or Steve from Accounting who's a little bit of devotion away from an Archivist?

[Harlot]

(I'm at work, so haven't read the whole thread, so sorry in advance for repeating other statements..)

I recently had a LOT of problems trying to run a low/non-magic world while actually having a magic-user in the group. It was a wizard, which made it very bad indeed, but having a sorcerer would be bad too.
I really can't recommend it.

The problem is that if your sorcerer is the only magic-user in a non-magic world, even very simple magic is very powerful, as there is hardly any non-magic way to counter it. I learned that the hard way.

Either have no magic whatsoever (Not good for D&D as the whole system is all about magic) or amp up the magic real fast.
I don't think it makes any difference if the players are your friends or not, or how experienced they are. If the magic is there for them to use, they'll use it, because basically we all like to win.

If you have the time, you may learn from my struggles here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=286736)

Best of luck with your campaign :-)
/Harlot